Caption: Historial changes in forest cover show that reforestation of abandoned farmland from the mid-19th through the late 20th century has provided a second chance to determine the fate of the region’s forests. Recent trends show the loss of forest throughout the region.

Source: Modified and updated from Foster, D. R., and J. Aber, editors. 2004. Forests in time: the environmental consequences of 1,000 years of change in New England. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.

Caption: Projections for the implementation of Wildlands and Woodlands demonstrate that roughly a doubling in the rate of forest conservation over current levels is needed to achieve the vision within 50 years.

Caption: The distribution of land protected from development in New England (both shades of green) bears testament to a lengthy history of conservation and the need for a new effort to conserve broad areas of continuous forest. Labeled areas in dark green are discussed in the text.

Sources: Data from The Nature Conservancy, Harvard Forest, Vermont Land Trust, and the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission.

Caption: All six New England states are expected to experience dramatic rates of forest loss over the next 20 years. The areas of most intense future development overlap with those that underwent the greatest increase in population in recent years. These include the suburbanizing region that stretches from north of Boston to southern Maine and the area adjacent to Burlington, Vermont.

Sources: Population map is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau. To represent meaningful changes, only sub-county areas with a 2008 population of 50 people or more are shown. The projected forest development map is reprinted from the Forests on the Edge research project, sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service. Figure is courtesy of S.M. Stein and the U.S. Forest Service (Stein et al. 2005, 2010).

Caption: The Northern Maine landscape was once dominated by large parcels held for many years by industrial and family owners. With land sales and parcel division, the area has experienced a major shift, and in 2001 the largest category of land ownership crossed over from the forest industry to emerging ownership types. The gap has expanded since that time, increasing the risk of further parcelization.

Caption: Over the past five decades, the net volume of timber growing in New England forests has increased. Harvesting has kept pace with growth for softwood species, while hardwood species have continued to grow more rapidly than the rate of harvest.

Caption: The range in forest cover across New England strongly influences how conserved Woodlands would be distributed across the landscape under a future Wildlands and Woodlands scenario.

Source: Developed from the NLCD (2001). Note: The values for “percent forest” are based on the natural land classification of the NLCD and include: deciduous forest, mixed forest, evergreen forest, woody wetlands, open water, scrub/shrub, emergent herbaceous, wetland, grassland/herbaceous, barren land, shrubland, and estuarine wetland.

Caption: The rate of carbon uptake and storage measured at a 100+ year-old stand at the Harvard Forest is continuing to increase as the forest ages, confirming that old forests in New England have an important role to play in reducing the pace of climate change.

Sources: Figure based on the world’s longest continuous record of carbon uptake in a forest, recorded using the eddy flux technique in a mature, 100+ year-old oak, red maple, and white pine stand at the Harvard Forest (Foster and Aber 2004). Data from the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research Program, courtesy of William Munger and Steven Wofsy of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University.

Caption: A growing number of organizations, agencies, and landowners are part of the Wildlands and Woodlands Stewardship Science network, documenting forest dynamics across a wide array of stand types, management regimes, and ownerships.

Caption: Forest conservation efforts in New England are an important part of contentinental scale initiatives within the extensive, continuous forest stretching from the southern Appalachians to the Maritime provinces of Canada.